I think that when people are at their best, when they are thinking, reflecting, cogitating, then they are doing philosophy. So I don't see philosophy as an academic enterprise.

Just to say "Well, God is dead" in one breath is to say, in another, that nothing means anything. This is the moment of nihilism. Nihilism is the affirmation of meaninglessness.

It is so ridiculous to limit oneself to one version of the truth.

It's complicated. On the one hand we're killer apes, and on the other hand we have this metaphysical longing.

The only answer to the question of the meaning of life has to begin from the fact of our human finitude, of our vulnerability and our fallibility.

Philosophy, for me, is a way of relearning to look at the world, a world that is familiar to us, that we know, that is shared by all human beings and also by nonhuman beings.

Peace is nothing more than the regulation of the psycho-political economy of awe and reverential fear, of using the threat of terror in order to bind citizens to the circuit of their subjection.

We might even define the human as a dynamic process produced by a series of identifications and misidentifications with animality.

The current situation with regard to theory is odd and maybe defined by a paradox.

The philosopher is someone who doesn't know, but who wants to find out.

That is to say, politics is essentially about the management of fear, an economy of fear, continually adjusting the level of fear to produce the right level of affect in the citizenry.

I live in one of the best places, bar none, to appreciate the wild natural environment. I also live in one of the most politically difficult places to work on its behalf: Alaska.

Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.

Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.

Dare to read.

The opportunity of a lifetime needs to be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.

Feeling hopeless? But are you even there yet?

It doesn't take me long to write songs.

My love was Bob Dylan, but as I got older I realized a good ballad was a good ballad.

All conceptions in the game of chess have a geometrical basis.

The way you get through tragedy is to look at the good things in life.